Greatest hits of the Virginia governor's race (so far)

PolitiFact Virginia has had its eyes peeled for fact-checks in the state’s gubernatorial race, one of the nation’s most high-profile campaigns for 2013.Democrat Terry McAuliffe, former chair of the Democratic National Committee, has led Republican Ken Cuccinelli, the state’s attorney general, by a slim margin recently.

Now that the race is a couple of weeks away, we’re highlighting some of the most important or interesting fact-checks. The links will take you to the full fact-check and complete sources.

Cuccinelli wanted to strip Planned Parenthood of state funding. His amendment tied up the Senate for several hours in 2008. But we found no evidence he was gunning for a shutdown. And no, McAuliffe hasn’t threatened to shut down state government, either. We rated McAuliffe’s claim Pants on Fire.

Cuccinelli questioned in his bookwhether Medicare, Social Security should exist. Mostly False.

-- Democratic Party of Virginia, July 16, 2013, in a TV ad

Cuccinelli did criticize "bad politicians" for creating programs like Medicare and Social Security, which he thinks make people dependent on government. However, Cuccinelli specifically added that he’s not questioning the existence of those programs or how much money is spent on them. We rated the ad’s claim Mostly False.

GreenTech Automotive, a company McAuliffe founded, is being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission, along with a partner company. But the candidate wasn’t contacted personally by the SEC and isn’t part of the investigation. We rated Cuccinelli’s claim False.

Virginia used to hold this title, but fell behind Pennsylvania last year. The state tightened its background check requirements after the Virginia Tech shooting in 2008. We rated the claim Mostly True.

McAuliffe has worked on policies regarding state government ethics reform, standardized testing in public schools and the option to eliminate some taxes on localities. We rated Cuccinelli’s claim False.

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